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Author Skov-Rackette, S.I.; Shettleworth, S.J.
Title What do rats learn about the geometry of object arrays? Tests with exploratory behavior Type Journal Article
Year 2005 Publication Journal of experimental psychology. Animal behavior processes Abbreviated Journal J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process
Volume 31 Issue 2 Pages 142-154
Keywords Animals; Behavior, Animal; *Discrimination Learning; *Exploratory Behavior; Female; *Form Perception; Habituation, Psychophysiologic; Male; Rats; Rats, Long-Evans
Abstract (down) Six experiments using habituation of exploratory behavior tested whether disoriented rats foraging in a large arena encode the shapes of arrays of objects. Rats did not respond to changes in position of a single object, but they responded to a change in object color and to a change in position of 1 object in a square array, as in previous research (e.g., C. Thinus-Blanc et al., 1987). Rats also responded to an expansion of a square array, suggesting that they encoded sets of interobject distances rather than overall shape. In Experiments 4-6, rats did not respond to changes in sense of a triangular array that maintained interobject distances and angles. Shapes of object arrays are encoded differently from shapes of enclosures.
Address Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 3G3, Canada. shannon.skov.rackette@utoronto.ca
Corporate Author Thesis
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Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
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ISSN 0097-7403 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:15839772 Approved no
Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 363
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Author Shettleworth, S.J.; Sutton, J.E.
Title Multiple systems for spatial learning: dead reckoning and beacon homing in rats Type Journal Article
Year 2005 Publication Journal of experimental psychology. Animal behavior processes Abbreviated Journal J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process
Volume 31 Issue 2 Pages 125-141
Keywords Animals; Behavior, Animal; Cues; *Feeding Behavior; Habituation, Psychophysiologic; *Homing Behavior; *Learning; Male; Rats; Rats, Long-Evans; *Space Perception
Abstract (down) Rats homed with food in a large lighted arena. Without visual cues, they used dead reckoning. When a beacon indicated the home, rats could also use the beacon. Homing did not differ in 2 groups of rats, 1 provided with the beacon and 1 without it; tests without the beacon gave no evidence that beacon learning overshadowed dead reckoning (Experiment 1). When the beacon was at the home for 1 group and in random locations for another, there was again no evidence of cue competition (Experiment 2). Dead reckoning experience did not block acquisition of beacon homing (Experiment 3). Beacon learning and dead reckoning do not compete for predictive value but acquire information in parallel and are used hierarchically.
Address Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 3G3, Canada. shettle@psych.utoronto.ca
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0097-7403 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:15839771 Approved no
Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 364
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Author Gibson, B.M.; Shettleworth, S.J.
Title Competition among spatial cues in a naturalistic food-carrying task Type Journal Article
Year 2003 Publication Learning & behavior : a Psychonomic Society publication Abbreviated Journal Learn Behav
Volume 31 Issue 2 Pages 143-159
Keywords Adaptation, Psychological; Animals; Appetitive Behavior; *Association Learning; *Attention; Choice Behavior; *Cues; *Discrimination Learning; Male; Rats; Rats, Long-Evans; Space Perception; *Spatial Behavior
Abstract (down) Rats collected nuts from a container in a large arena in four experiments testing how learning about a beacon or cue at a goal interacts with learning about other spatial cues (place learning). Place learning was quick, with little evidence of competition from the beacon (Experiments 1 and 2). Rats trained to approach a beacon regardless of its location were subsequently impaired when the well-learned beacon was removed and other spatial cues identified the location of the goal (Experiment 3). The competition between beacon and place cues reflected learned irrelevance for place cues (Experiment 4). The findings differ from those of some studies of associative interactions between cue and place learning in other paradigms.
Address University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 1543-4494 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:12882373 Approved no
Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 368
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Author Shettleworth, S.J.; Plowright, C.M.
Title How pigeons estimate rates of prey encounter Type Journal Article
Year 1992 Publication Journal of experimental psychology. Animal behavior processes Abbreviated Journal J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process
Volume 18 Issue 3 Pages 219-235
Keywords Analysis of Variance; Animals; *Appetitive Behavior; Columbidae; Conditioning, Operant; Food Preferences/*psychology; Motivation; *Predatory Behavior; *Probability Learning; *Reinforcement Schedule; Social Environment
Abstract (down) Pigeons were trained on operant schedules simulating successive encounters with prey items. When items were encountered on variable-interval schedules, birds were more likely to accept a poor item (long delay to food) the longer they had just searched, as if they were averaging prey density over a short memory window (Experiment 1). Responding as if the immediate future would be like the immediate past was reversed when a short search predicted a long search next time (Experiment 2). Experience with different degrees of environmental predictability appeared to change the length of the memory window (Experiment 3). The results may reflect linear waiting (Higa, Wynne, & Staddon, 1991), but they differ in some respects. The findings have implications for possible mechanisms of adjusting behavior to current reinforcement conditions.
Address Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada
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Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0097-7403 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:1619391 Approved no
Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 382
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Author Sole, L.M.; Shettleworth, S.J.; Bennett, P.J.
Title Uncertainty in pigeons Type Journal Article
Year 2003 Publication Psychonomic bulletin & review Abbreviated Journal Psychon Bull Rev
Volume 10 Issue 3 Pages 738-745
Keywords Animals; Behavior, Animal; Columbidae; *Decision Making; Reinforcement (Psychology); Reward; Transfer (Psychology); Visual Perception
Abstract (down) Pigeons classified a display of illuminated pixels on a touchscreen as sparse or dense. Correct responses were reinforced with six food pellets; incorrect responses were unreinforced. On some trials an uncertain response option was available. Pecking it was always reinforced with an intermediate number of pellets. Like monkeys and people in related experiments, the birds chose the uncertain response most often when the stimulus presented was difficult to classify correctly, but in other respects their behavior was not functionally similar to human behavior based on conscious uncertainty or to the behavior of monkeys in comparable experiments. Our data were well described by a signal detection model that assumed that the birds were maximizing perceived reward in a consistent way across all the experimental conditions.
Address University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
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Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 1069-9384 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:14620372 Approved no
Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 366
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Author Sekuler, A.B.; Lee, J.A.; Shettleworth, S.J.
Title Pigeons do not complete partly occluded figures Type Journal Article
Year 1996 Publication Perception Abbreviated Journal Perception
Volume 25 Issue 9 Pages 1109-1120
Keywords Animals; *Columbidae; *Visual Perception
Abstract (down) One of the most common obstacles to object perception is the fact that objects often occlude parts of themselves and parts of other objects. Perceptual completion has been studied extensively in humans, and researchers have shown that humans do complete partly occluded objects. In an effort to understand more about the mechanisms underlying completion, recent research has extended the study of perceptual completion to other mammalian species. Monkeys and mice also seem to complete two-dimensional representations of partly occluded objects. The present study addresses the question of whether this capacity generalizes to a nonmammalian species, the pigeon (Columba livia). The results point to a limit of the generalizability of perceptual completion: pigeons do not complete partly occluded figures.
Address Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, ON, Canada
Corporate Author Thesis
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Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0301-0066 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:8983050 Approved no
Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 377
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Author Gibson, B.M.; Shettleworth, S.J.
Title Place versus response learning revisited: tests of blocking on the radial maze Type Journal Article
Year 2005 Publication Behavioral neuroscience Abbreviated Journal Behav Neurosci
Volume 119 Issue 2 Pages 567-586
Keywords Animals; *Association Learning; Male; *Maze Learning; Memory; Rats; Rats, Long-Evans; Reproducibility of Results
Abstract (down) Neurobiological and behavioral research indicates that place learning and response learning occur simultaneously, in parallel. Such findings seem to conflict with theories of associative learning in which different cues compete for learning. The authors conducted place+response training on a radial maze and then tested place learning and response learning separately by reconfiguring the maze in various ways. Consistent with the effects of manipulating place and response systems in the brain (M. G. Packard & J. L. McGaugh, 1996), well-trained rats showed strong place learning and strong response learning. Three experiments using associative blocking paradigms indicated that prior response learning interferes with place learning. Blocking and related tests can be used to better understand how memory systems interact during learning.
Address Department of Psychology, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH 03824-3567, USA. bgibson@cisunix.unh.edu
Corporate Author Thesis
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Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0735-7044 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:15839803 Approved no
Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 362
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Author Shettleworth, S.J.; Krebs, J.R.
Title How marsh tits find their hoards: the roles of site preference and spatial memory Type Journal Article
Year 1982 Publication Journal of experimental psychology. Animal behavior processes Abbreviated Journal J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process
Volume 8 Issue 4 Pages 354-375
Keywords Animals; *Appetitive Behavior; Birds; Cues; Discrimination Learning; *Memory; *Mental Recall; *Orientation; *Space Perception
Abstract (down) Marsh tits (Parus palustris) store single food items in scattered locations and recover them hours or days later. Some properties of the spatial memory involved were analyzed in two laboratory experiments. In the first, marsh tits were offered 97 sites for storing 12 seeds. They recovered a median of 65% of them 2-3 hr later, making only two errors per seed while doing so. Over trials, they used some sites more often than others, but during recovery they were more likely to visit a site of any preference value if they had stored a seed there that day than if they had not. Recovery performance was much worse if the experimenters moved the seeds between storage and recovery. A fixed search strategy that had some of the same average properties as the tits' search behavior also did worse than the real birds. In Experiment 2, any tendency to visit the same sites on successive daily tests in the aviary was placed in opposition to memory for storage sites by allowing the tits to store more seeds 2 hr after storing a first batch. They tended to avoid individual storage sites holding seeds from the first batch. When the tits searched for all the seeds 2 hr later, they tended to recover more seeds from the second batch than from the first, i.e., there was a recency effect.
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Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
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ISSN 0097-7403 ISBN Medium
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Notes PMID:7175447 Approved no
Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 385
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Author Shettleworth, S.J.
Title Varieties of learning and memory in animals Type Journal Article
Year 1993 Publication Journal of experimental psychology. Animal behavior processes Abbreviated Journal J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process
Volume 19 Issue 1 Pages 5-14
Keywords Animals; Association Learning; Birds; Conditioning, Classical; Evolution; Imprinting (Psychology); *Learning; *Memory; Social Environment; Species Specificity; Taste
Abstract (down) It is often assumed that there is more than one kind of learning--or more than one memory system--each of which is specialized for a different function. Yet, the criteria by which the varieties of learning and memory should be distinguished are seldom clear. Learning and memory phenomena can differ from one another across species or situations (and thus be specialized) in a number of different ways. What is needed is a consistent theoretical approach to the whole range of learning phenomena, and one is explored here. Parallels and contrasts in the study of sensory systems illustrate one way to integrate the study of general mechanisms with an appreciation of species-specific adaptations.
Address Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada
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Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0097-7403 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:8418217 Approved no
Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 380
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Author Shettleworth, S.J.; Juergensen, M.R.
Title Reinforcement and the organization of behavior in golden hamsters: brain stimulation reinforcement for seven action patterns Type Journal Article
Year 1980 Publication Journal of experimental psychology. Animal behavior processes Abbreviated Journal J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process
Volume 6 Issue 4 Pages 352-375
Keywords Animals; Behavior, Animal/*physiology; Cricetinae; Electric Stimulation; Female; Hypothalamus/*physiology; Male; Medial Forebrain Bundle/physiology; Mesocricetus; *Reinforcement (Psychology)
Abstract (down) Golden hamsters were reinforced with intracranial electrical stimulation of the lateral hypothalamus (ICS) for spending time engaging in one of seven topographically defined action patterns (APs). The stimulation used as reinforcer elicited hoarding and/or feeding and supported high rates of bar pressing. In Experiment 1, hamsters were reinforced successively for digging, open rearing, and face washing. Digging increased most in time spent, and face washing increased least. Experiments 2-5 examined these effects further and also showed that “scrabbling,” like digging, was performed a large proportion of the time, almost without interruption, for contingent ICS but that scratching the body with a hindleg and scent-marking showed relatively little effect of contingent ICS, the latter even in an environment that facilitated marking. In Experiment 6, naive hamsters received ICS not contingent on behavior every 30 sec (fixed-time 30-sec schedule). Terminal behaviors that developed on this schedule were APs that were easy to reinforce in the other experiments, but a facultative behavior, face washing, was one not so readily reinforced. Experiment 7 confirmed a novel prediction from Experiment 6--that wall rearing, a terminal AP, would be performed at a high level for contingent ICS. All together, the results point to both motivational factors and associative factors being involved in the considerable differences in performance among different reinforced activities.
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ISSN 0097-7403 ISBN Medium
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Notes PMID:6968817 Approved no
Call Number refbase @ user @ Serial 386
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